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+## Submission Guidelines
+To avoid the clutter trap that many other lists succumb to as they scale, only the best software is included. But "best" is relative and differs person-to-person. Here, it's mostly guaged based on five criteria. Keep in mind every "guideline" is more of a suggestion and can be skirted, thus, pay greater attention to the real-life examples I've included - they do a much better job of articulating what makes it onto this list. 
+
+### 1. Popularity
+Projects with over 5000 stars are preferred. Popularity is far from the best method, but people use specific software for a reason - probably because it's halfway decent. Again, this isn't foolproof. People can be allergic to change and there's plenty of times where a piece of software is blatantly better than an alternative but the majority use the latter because they either aren't aware or just don't care. 
+
+```css
+Note: Criteria [2,3,4] are closely intertwined
+```
+
+### 2. A Foundation
+The project should have a solid foundation:
+- A solid set of contributors, not neccesarily in quality but commitment
+
+### 3. Activity
+The project must show signs of recent activity. Abandoned software will not be placed on this list - **no expections.** 
+
+### 4. Future Proof
+Going alongside the above criteria, the project must have consistent activity and evidence of a future. 
+
+### 5. Quality
+Lastly, is the software decent?
+
+